Why I chose Windows 8

I recently built a new monster photo-editing rig - I wanted a fast box to speed up my workflow so I overclocked the latest Ivy Bridge core I7, stuffed it with as much ram as the motherboard could take and filled the drive bays with the latest SSDs. But when it came time to choose and operating system, I discovered my initial choice (my current copy of windows 7) didn't support more than 16GB of ram. I'd have to shell out $90 to upgrade it to the a Win7 Pro version. That was all the excuse I needed to experiment a bit.
I had already been running the RTM version of Windows 8 on my Slate so I was already familiar with it and found it to be very stable. When I went to the Microsoft site to get a release copy to evaluate, I discovered the my first reason for helping my seal the deal for W8...

Cost: Microsoft wants to get everybody over to W8 so if they're running a promotion til the end of the year that if you bought (or built) a computer after July 2012, you can get a full released version of W8 PROFESSIONAL edition for $14.95. Yep, that's right a full install OS for less than $15 - and not just the basic bottom tier version but the PRO edition that I needed to support my 32GB of ram. It was so cheap I bought and extra copy to put on my Slate.

 Speed: WIN8 really optimizes the Boot process compared to WIN7, I can go from power off to sign on in about 10 seconds and that includes BIOS post process. Because of it's fresh release it was built with the latest driver protocols that make use of USB 3.0 - these were still a bit wonky on my old WIN7 box. Actually all my devices had appropriate drivers included in the initial install which has be a first for me in the years I've been building computers.

Storage Spaces: I don't know why Microsoft doesn't market this more but they took a bit of their server technology and built it into the OS. If you don't know, Storage Spaces is kind of like a 'Drobo' approach to storage - you can take a bunch of hard drives of various sizes and interfaces (even external USB drives) and create a pool of storage from which you can provision virtual drives that show up in explorer. You can also select whether you want your data mirrored or striped across multiple drives to allow for data recovery should one or more of the pool drive fail. The OS takes care of everything, if you start running low on space in the pool, the OS warns you and all you need to do is plug in a new drive (or swap a drive out with one of more capacity), add it to the pool and the OS does the rest. Pretty cool. In the past, when my image collection was filling up a drive, I'd buy a larger one, copy all the images over then toss the old drive in the closet. Now I can just freely add capacity and forget about any copying.

Been using this setup for a few months now and through several large shoots with no problems. I've found the OS to be stable on the desktop with a lot of little improvements over WIN7 and nothing I miss - NOT EVEN THE START MENU - I honestly don't understand why the tech media says the new interface is great for touch but sucks on the desktop. While I didn't use the start menu all that much in WIN7, it nothing more than a application launcher, WIN8 has a launcher, it just looks different. While the main tile interface may not contain every installed application one keypress will pull up a display that does...Better yet just start typing the name of the app and it's icon will typically show up ready to launch by time you type the third letter... I really don't think it's worse, or better --- just different.

Hoodman 'Raw Steel' CF Cardreader - USB 3.0 rocks

USB 3.0 is blazing fast but it's not without some faults. Mainly, the with the infancy of the interface, there are quite a few peripherals out there that are labeled USB 3.0 but do not conform to the standard.  I ran it to that recently with my Kingston CF card reader - worked great with Windows 7 but was reduced to a USB 2.0 device with my new box which is running Windows 8. Yes, I know, windows 8 is still a preview and not a final product. But according to the Building Windows 8 blog the USB 3.0 stack in the windows 8 kernel was built from the ground up to the latest standard so I'm taking the position that if something ain't working - it's the device's fault. And to that end, I am happy to find that my latest CF card reader, the Hoodman USB 3.0 Raw Steel UDMA card reader works like a charm with my windows 8 install. Using Sandisk Extreme Pro 32Gb cards I'm getting a rock solid 80Mb/sec transfer rate. Which equates to roughly a little over 3 minutes to download 1000+ (26Gb) of 18Mpixel Raw files (which is a typical football shoot) to the hard disk. While I use to be able to go have a cup of coffee while my images download, now my download is complete before I'm finished grinding the beans.
Another thing I like about the Hoodman is that it is firmware upgradeable, for example Hoodman recently released a firmware update to make the CF reader UDMA 7 compliant. ---I couldn't find any support downloads for the Kingston. So if you looking for a Windows 8 compatible USB 3.0 CF reader - The Hoodman is a good choice

Dream Camera...(revisited)

Back in 2006, I wrote a post which listed all the cameras I've owned  through the years and made a presumptuous conclusion that my days of upgrading were over since I obtained my "Dream Camera", a Canon 1DmkII.  Silly me..
Since then I've had 3 bodies:
Canon 5DmkII - A great image sensor trapped in a slow focusing, mid-grade build quality body.
Canon 5DmkIII - A super image sensor wrapped in a solid body and endowed with the modern AF system of the top of the line 1Dx. An excellent camera that should do more than any photographer short of the sports shooter could ask for.
Canon 1Dx - The top dawg, IQ, high ISO capability and dynamic range that made me choose it, and its premium $$, over the 5D.
My glass collection has also grown to now include: 15mm 2.8 fisheye,14mmF2.8, 24mm 3.5 TS-E II, 17-40F4L,24-105F4LIS,50F1.8, 70-200F2.8LIS II,85F1.2L, 100mmF2.8L Macro, and my baby the 300F2.8L.

So NOW am I done?...hardly. I know better. I can probably say that I'm done with DSLRs at this point as my dream camera now is a one of the new Compact System Cameras. As sensor technology advances, these smaller sensor formats will keep all the advantages of lighter, more compact bodies and lenses without any compromise in image quality. Manufacturers are pretty close to hitting the sweet spot and I'm about to sell my 5DmkIII to move to one of these gems. Leading the pack is the Fuji ex-1 followed by the Sony Nex-6 and with the awesome lenses available for the micro 4/3s systems, those are high on the list as well...

Workflow test: Canon 1Dx

So one of the things I was really looking forward to with my 1Dx was superfast image transfers with it's built in Ethernet port. The 1Dx can be set to connect to a network and upload files to an FTP server either for shooting tethered or for downloading all images after a shoot (which was my interest). I was salivating over the possibility of hooking this up to my gigabit network and sucking a 32Gig shoot down in a few minutes. But as soon as I configured my FTP server and set up the camera to send my first shoot my bubble went bust... a paltry 17MB/sec throughput (slower than my  USB 2.0 reader) Switching to the USB 3.0 port of the camera wasn't much better, averaging just 24MB/sec. So while these interfaces are probably a big improvement for tethered shooting, for larger transfers it looks like the card reader will still reign supreme. Damn shame...

Building a better box for Lightroom...not really

So I finally got tired of putting up with what I thought was an out of date computer system (pre intel 'core i' ) Decided to build a box specifically aimed at speeding up my Lightroom workflow. The latest Ivy Bridge 3770k with 4 hyperthreaded cores overclocked to 4.3Ghz, 32 Gb of ram, 3 SSDs: 1 for the OS, 1 as 'working area' to store the raw files of any shoot actively being worked and 1 SSD dedicated to the Lightroom catalogue database and associated previous. USB3.0 card readers for quick downloading. All running under the control of the svelte Windows 8 operating system.

 This box is fricken hot, but did it do anything for my workflow? Well not really. Improvement was rather disappointing. Importing, and rendering a big shoot is still a  'start and go watch TV' process. Most disappointing is that the image to image load time is still a couple tenths of a second which doesn't sound like much but after shooting a football game at 12 frames a second I want to quickly scan through my shoot to grab the keepers. With this hardware expect (and should get )  INSTANTANEOUS image to image load times. Lightroom is great, but its just a pig so I'm crossing my fingers that they add some GPU acceleration and other speed trick for Lightroom 5.

So I'm calling this new box build a bust for lightroom but as a consolation, I think I'm gonna throw in a NVIDA 660ti and make one rocking gaming box!

3 feet to the right

Went to shoot a local HS football game last night - I love shooting action from the sidelines. Lately, I've been  playing with dialing in the 1Dx and getting use to its controls and setting it up so I can work quickly.
So there I was on the side lines about 35 yards down field from the line of scrimmage. I watch the snap through my 300mm lens and see a big hole develop and running back coming right up the middle, and the defense bites, but it's play action and I see the QB roll out with the ball, lock on target and launch the ball. I pull away from the camera and spot their star receiver hauling ass down the opposite side line, I whip the camera to the action, find him in the view finder, the camera locks focus in an instant. I can see his eyes tracking the ball as it approaches, they widen as ball comes into view, I thought it was out of his reach, he leaps, completely laying out in mid air - this kid was frickin' flying, it was so awesome. I start firing off the shutter but WTF?  I see a zebra flash across my viewfinder! I've been wanting for a shot like this since I've been shooting football and just my luck, that official ate his wheaties that morning and actually kept up with these kids - good for him, but damn if it screwed my shot.

Don't give up on that small sensor just yet.

While everyone is going ga-ga over the latest 'big sensor in a small camera' (including me admittedly) There is still some image related advantages of a small sensor pocket cam - Macro shots are just crazy easy with these guys. Their small sensor means super depth of field, and while not so favorable for portraits of people, it's a plus on macro portraits of little creatures such as my six-eyed friend here. 

I found this guy crawling around our campsite on a recent trip and grabbed this shot with my trusty Canon Powershot G9.  I never used the viewfinder, I just stuck the lens about an inch away from this guy half pressed til I heard the 'beep' and fired - the wide DOF kept him nice and sharp. Lighting was provided by the built-in flash and what's neat is that at these close distances, the lens is closer to the subject than the flash is to the lens so it results in an off-axis light just like off camera flash  but without all the triggers and extra gear. (I actually had to hold the camera upside down so the flash was close enough to light the subject, right side up, it was casting the light about 2 feet behind the subject.)

I think the results (make sure you click the picture to see it full size) weren't too shabby for a camera that cost less than 1/3 the price of good Macro lens for the DSLR.